London Paddington station (London)

 train station, Grade I Listed (UK), head house (train station)

Paddington station is a London Terminal and tube station, and is the terminus of the Great Western Main Line which serves Reading, Oxford, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter and the southwest. Services are operated by First Great Western. The station is also served by the London Underground. There are 14 platforms under 4 trainshed spans.

The station was built by the Great Western Railway, which started out as a railway to Bristol, and it was designed by their famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The GWR also backed the Metropolitan Railway who built the World's first Underground line from Paddington and for some time mainline trains were ran down the underground line to terminate.

The Metropolitan railway's line is used by the Circle, District and H&C lines of the London Underground. The underground station is also served by the Bakerloo Line.

The station also serves as the namesake of Paddington Bear, a popular children's book series by Michael Bond and first illustrated by Peggy Fortnum.

The polite immigrant bear from Darkest Peru, with his old hat, battered suitcase, duffle coat and love of marmalade sandwiches has become a classic character from English children's literature.

Paddington books have been translated into thirty languages across seventy titles and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Over 265 licences, making thousands of different products across the United Kingdom, Europe, United States, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia and South Africa all benefit from the universal recognition of Paddington Bear.

Paddington is an anthropomorphised bear. He is always polite—always addressing people as "Mr.", "Mrs." and "Miss" and very rarely by first names—and well-meaning, though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval. He likes marmalade sandwiches and cocoa, and has an endless capacity for getting into trouble. However, he is known to "try so hard to get things right". He is an adoptive member of the (human) Brown family, and thus gives his full name as Paddington Brown.

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